Thus spake David Ortiz in the wake of Friday’s twin killing; one can only imagine what his mood was like after yesterday afternoon’s abomination. Ortiz (putting up monster numbers for the fourth straight year) and Manny Ramirez (putting up monster numbers for the 12th straight year) are far and away the best 3-4 combo in the game; at this point, there’s legitimate debate about whether they’re the best ever.

And right how they’re toiling for a team that appears to be heading quickly down the toilet. There’s a lot of time left in the season, and even after a frighteningly bad stretch, the Red Sox are still only 4.5 games out; a pair of wins tonight and tomorrow will bring them back within 2.5. Admittedly, that doesn’t seem likely. And admittedly, this appears to be a Red Sox team that will miss out on the playoffs for the first time since 2002. Are the Sox squandering one of the last remaining years of Manny and Papi?

***

Ever since the trade deadline, there’s been a lot of chatter — online, in print, over the airwaves — about the Red Sox’s long-term plan versus a focus on the present. I’m at least partially the cause of (or at fault for, depending on your perspective) this discussion because of a scene in the introduction of my book, where I write about a senior staff meeting the Sox held in the days immediately following last year’s playoff loss to the White Sox. In that meeting, Theo Epstein spoke frankly about the future of the organization. “In general, we’ve had a lot of success in player development,” he said. “We’re going to need a lot of patience, because there’s going to be a lot of failure. It could get rough. … Sooner or later we might need to take a half a step backward in return for a step forward. … What if we win 85 games [next year]? We’re bringing up some young players that are going to be better in ’07 than they will be next year. And they’ll probably be even better than that in ’08. … We can be both a large revenue club [that can afford to sign high priced free agents] and have a strong farm system. But it’s probably not going to be a seamless transition. This year we had a great year. We will probably be worse next year.”

In my book, Epstein’s comments — made less than a month before he walked out of Fenway in a gorilla suit — are offset against those made by Larry Lucchino. This scene has been interpreted as Epstein throwing in the towel for 2006 and Lucchino wanting to go for it year after year.

That’s not accurate. Epstein and Lucchino were both, in their own ways, discussing the team’s approach to dealing with the public, not its approach to dealing with the team. That hasn’t changed much: take advantage of what you have, don’t mortgage the future, search out possible bargains, and spend big money when you find someone worth it. This Sox administration has always been willing to trade its prospects so long as it felt like the deal made sense — it was Jon Lester, after all, who was set to go to Texas along with Manny during the week or so in which it looked as if A-Rod would be playing in Boston. And last month it was Lester (along with Coco Crisp) who would have gone to Atlanta for Andruw Jones.

What’s more, it’s hard to look objectively at this year and see a team that had decided to throw in the towel. The 2006 Red Sox have a $120 million payroll. Among this year’s new acquisitions, there’s Mike Lowell, a $9 million third baseman. The Sox spent $5.5 for two middle relievers, and a combined $6 million for a shortstop and second baseman. That, right there, is higher than the Florida Marlins payroll, and more than half of that of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Instead of Mike Lowell, Alex Gonzalez, Mark Loretta, and Kevin Youkilis — a $15 million infield — the Sox could have had Andy Marte, Hanley Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, and Youkilis — a $1.25 million infield (slightly more if you factor in the money the Sox sent to Atlanta in the Renteria-Marte deal). Instead of Rudy Seanez and Julian Tavarez, the Sox could have begun the season with Sanchez and Hansen, for a savings of about $5.5 million. Instead of Beckett, they could have begun the year with a rotation of Schilling, Wakefield, Clement, Wells, and Papelbon, with Foulke out there as the closer, Lenny DiNardo as a backup starter, and Arroyo sent packing for Wily Mo Pena, who would have been the team’s full-time center fielder. That, my friends, would have been a rebuilding year.

Instead — and despite the fact that the Sox were basically held together in 2005 by spit, luck, Damon, Ortiz, and Ramirez — Boston made a series of moves it thought would both allow the team to compete in 2006 and compete down the road. (I’m not going to argue the Damon non-signing again. The Sox couldn’t have re-signed Damon unless they’d offered him a seven-year deal. And I still think within a year or two we’ll all be glad Johnny’s not picking up his annual $13 million check from Yawkey Way.)

So what happened? Well, where do you want to start? Jason Varitek hit like a shell of his former self; then he got injured. Trot Nixon hit for less power than at any point in his career; then he got injured. Matt Clement, David Wells, Tim Wakefield, and Keith Foulke all spent (or are spending) serious time on the DL. Coco Crisp got injured and had a harder time adjusting to Boston than was predicted. Mike Timlin got injured and stopped looking like an ultra-durable 33-year old and started looking more like the 40-year old he actually is. Seanez and Tavarez were both busts. That’s a whole mess of crappy luck. The real mystery isn’t why the Sox are sucking right now; the real mystery is how they managed to do so well for so long with so much going wrong.

***

But back to the trade deadline. Let’s say the Sox had pulled off one of the blockbuster deals that was being discussed. Let’s say they’d acquired Roy Oswalt. Or Andruw Jones. They’d both be worth between 7 and 8 win shares for the two months remaining in the season — and that could, potentially, be enough to make up for the lost ground with the Yankees. Except these were trades, and in most iterations of these trades, the Sox would be losing Crisp, Lester, and perhaps another player. Lester and Crisp are projected to be worth between 7 and 8 win shares each over the season’s final two months…which leaves a net gain of zero. Having Andruw Jones in center would undoubtedly have made the Red Sox a better team…but the rotation would still be relying on two guys closer to AARP membership than they are to their teenage years, and the non-Papelbon bullpen would still be frighteningly shoddy. Oswalt would have bolstered the rotation, to be sure…but he wouldn’t have done anything about the relief, and wouldn’t have done anything to help bolster the offense. This is, after all, a team that yesterday relied on Javy Lopez for protection after Manny drew a couple of intentional passes.

How about Bobby Abreu, whom the Yankees picked up for chump change (in terms of what they had to give up)? As Gordon Edes and Nick Cafardo pointed out in yesterday’s Globe, Abreu would have cost the Sox $27.7 million for a season and a third. That’s a lot of cake. Instead, they got Eric Hinske for a little less than a season and a third at a cost of just over $4 million. Last year, Abreu had 17 win shares; Hinske had 12. And if twenty million dollars can only get you a net gain of five win shares, you’re not spending your money wisely. (A quick aside: the Sox haven’t made a decision to forego high-priced free-agents; to the contrary, they’ve decided that in order to cough up the money for truly valuable free-agents — those in their late 20’s as opposed to their late 30’s — they need to spend their money wisely.)

I’m not saying win shares are the be all and end all of evaluating players; like every metric, it’s flawed. Clearly the Sox thought straight up deals of Crisp and Lester for Jones or Crisp and Lester for Oswalt were worth it: they would have pulled the trigger on either one of those. But start throwing in other young pitchers in their first year of MLB service, and a good deal becomes a bad one.

***

On October 27, 2004 — you remember that day, right? — John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino sat in a hotel suite in St. Louis. “We don’t really want to go for it in any particular year,” Henry told me. “We want to be competitive every single year. Larry thinks we can expect to make the playoffs eight out of 10 years. I feel like we can do 10 out of 10.”

I asked what the difference was between going for broke one year and staying competitive every year.

“You’ve got to keep your eyes on both goals,” Lucchino said. “You canâ€šÃ„Ã´t go for broke without some longer term perspective and you canâ€šÃ„Ã´t have a longer term perspective, particularly in Boston, without some kind of annual focus on getting to the postseason. We have to operate on both dimensions every year, and I think we have. Thereâ€šÃ„Ã´s a lot of focus on what weâ€šÃ„Ã´ve done at the major league level and our post-season success and all that but if you look below the surface, weâ€šÃ„Ã´ve had a pretty good couple of drafts the last couple of years. And commitments to player development.”

That was Lucchino talking, not Epstein. It’s true that Epstein warned of the possibility of needing to take half a step back before the team could take a step forward…but not because he was advocating that. He was advocating a more tempered public relations approach. The Red Sox have been on the verge of an aging team for several years; all things considered, they’ve managed to make that transition pretty gracefully.

***

As of late, I’ve been accused of being an apologist for the Red Sox administration. I understand where that comes from — in Boston, anyone who doesn’t turn into Chicken Little is accused of being an apologist. But the fact that I understand where the Red Sox are coming from does not mean I think they’ve executed their plans brilliantly. I’m no baseball scout, so I won’t try to pretend to know what to look for when it comes to evaluating pitchers. I do know this administration has a mixed record (at best) of picking up pitching talent. There are obviously reasons (beyond the 2003 World Series; Mark Bellhorn had a great 2004 World Series and no one’s throwing cash at him) the Sox felt Josh Beckett was worth $30 million. I don’t know what they are, and the past month has made me wonder if any of us will ever know. The failure of Seanez and Tavarez this year would be easier to take if it hadn’t been preceded by the failure of a lot of other middle relievers the Sox thought might succeed, from Matt Mantei to Chad Bradford to Ramiro Medonza…the list goes on.

This season has been hard to stomach, but I understand what’s going on: shitty luck plus aging players is no recipe for success. I also understand why it didn’t make sense to go all in this year: all in still likely wouldn’t beat the Tigers or the Yankees. If, in a year, Beckett’s ERA is still hovering around 6.00 and the young guns in the bullpen are still coughing up runs, I’ll be more upset, both at the time and for the future. After all, we only have two more years of Papi and Manny anchoring the middle of the batting order.

9 Comments → “You know we’ve got to find a way: Red Sox 2006 edition”

trane

10 years ago

The thing about the trade deadline is not only that there were no moves (for a team that had looked mediocre since the AS break), but that the moves they considered (at least the ones we know about) were wrong. As you point out, Seth, Andruw Jones and Roy Oswalt would have been overly expensive lateral patch up jobs. This team needs – and has needed – relief pitching. Hanson and MDC did not start the season in the bullpen, were never meant to have this many innings, and have been innefective for awhile now (doubly so since Tek went down). They’ve shown flashes, but the idea we could ride these youngsters into the playoffs and beyond was ridiculous and short sighted. K-Rod does not strike twice, never mind three times in the same season for the same team (and we’ve already got Paplebon). Seanez and Tavarez have been busts from the start. Foulke has been unsteady and oft DL’d. Timlin has been eplileptically shaky. At some point the organization figured, “okay, it’s Manny and Craig. They’ll be solid for us all year.” Maybe they tried to add proven bullpen arms and we just never heard about it, but unless the vets in the pen turn it around, there lies our doom for the season.

thanks for some reasonable thoughts. I think another major issue that is concerning Sox fans and writers is a possible inflation in value of our own prospects. Certainly, as you said, Theo would have made any deadline deal he deemed valuable, but we as fans/writers have no way of evaluating his terms. Certainly his has track record, but in a year where a lot of his moves haven’t seen great results (possibly bad luck, as you say), we begin to wonder even more. I think most reasonable Sox fans understand the necessity of young talent, but concern starts when the Delcarmens and Lesters of the world play for weeks without showing much of it. I believe they will both be good to very good players, but I do understand why people watch them and say “what is Theo thinking?”. I think thoughtful Sox fans are willing to be patient, as long as they know the future is worth waiting for. The problem is that Crisp, Delcarmen, Hansen, and Lester lately have given them less reason to believe.

I am sorry, but right now I can’t even be hopeful for next year. Do you really think that Delcarmen and Lester are going to make a monumental leap next year? Is Hansen, no right now, I think those three are more like the young tiger pitchers were 2 years ago, and probably won’t make the leap needed until 2008. So next year no Wells, probably no Clement and Wake and Schilling will probably be on their last legs. 8 out of 10 years, right now I think they will be lucky if its 6 out of 10.

First off I think people need to take into account that those were rumored trades. That doesn’t mean they were actually agreed to in principal. Second the proposed deal was Crisp and Hansen for Andruw Jones who was going to be flipped to Houston for Oswalt. That is something I could buy into. Unfortunately Atlanta countered by asking for Crisp, Hansen AND Lester for Andruw Jones. That is too much as far as I’m concerned.

The bottom line is that not one single impact type pitcher was moved at the deadline. The reason is because there really wasn’t any available unless you were willing to seriously overpay. Pitching’s worth is at a premium now more than ever due to supply and demand. Look at the sky-rocketing prices for middle relief this past off-season. If Theo had made a move he would have gotten taken.

It certainly seems as though the media and the fans are starting to circle Theo for the kill, or at least the maim – as there is no chance in hell Sox ownership doesn’t want him back as a result of this season. And while this year is and will continue to be a huge disappointment, I for one am very very glad that baseball operations continues to function as non-fans. When we have been led by those who would rather cater to the fans/media than to winning, it resulted in approximately zero world championships. As always in Boston, people need to relax, step back, and maybe be content with watching baseball instead of needing to have “instant baseball dynasty: just add every available deadline star” It was, of course, only a matter of time until the media’s kid gloves came off for Theo and the new owners, and what better catalyst than losing. After all, what true Red Sox fan isn’t a masochist at heart… devouring the negative stories after a loss while soaking in the commiseration on EEI. I am bracing for the nastiness that is about the ensue, promising myself I will try not to read it, injecting an ounce of sense into overheard ignorant conversations at Fenway as someone regurgitates last week’s CHB to bolster this week’s Dirt Dogs. … Bottom line is this: 2006 Sox were not one or two players away from being great, they were three or four players away from being good. No available player at the deadline was the answer, and no one could have predicted the decline in luck or talent of so many of our core players. I am still confident the best people in baseball are running the show, and this past offseason (and Seth’s book) only reinforced that confidence. ’06 wasn’t our year, just as it won’t be for 28 other teams, and that’s just the way baseball is. And a razor blade isn’t hovering over my wrist as a result of having our clocks cleaned by the Yankees in these past three ugliest of ugly defeats. It’s not another “Boston Massacre” because their team is obviously superior. This is the first year I can really give the Yankees credit, they have really taken a beating this year with injuires/Arodity and they have persevered. They are easily winning this marathon and I respect that, although their pitching won’t carry them to victory in October I assure you. “Red Sox Nation” needs a new mantra: Ignore the Media. Lay Off the Rookies. Hire Roger Clemens to beat the crap out of Beckett. – That would just about do it I think.

It removed an almost certain 7 inning start every 5th game (giving temporary respite to an already terrible pen), AND inserted another shit starter. That’s a season ending whipsaw for a staff that already had 2 starters out.

so a team with a $120 million dollar payroll was supposed to take a step back this year? Give me a break. This team has too many guys on the wrong side of 30 for nonsense like that. Keep telling yourself this is all part of Theo’s master plan…

Obviously the season isn’t over, but if the Sox can’t make it, the story isn’t underachieving prospects, or aging talent… injuries putting rookies and younger players into tougher situations definitely hurt this team. I’m pretty sure that most of us agree on Javy Lopez not being what the Sox needed behind the plate. There was a reason most O’s pitchers favored Ramon Hernandez behind the dish. Varitek could be back in 9 days, Wake as well.

Let’s not forget that there are still 3 more games against the Yankees. It’s not over.